SDG Reviews 'Prometheus' (6680)

Ridley Scott’s Alien was originally pitched by screenwriter Dan O’Bannon as “Jaws in space,” and Scott has said that he took on the effects-driven science-fiction film in part because he was impressed by Star Wars. Now, over three decades later, the 74-year-old Scott returns to Alien territory for a sprawling magnum opus with philosophical and existential aspirations as soaring as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Tree of Life.

Alien has been called “a haunted-house movie in space,” but its driving anxieties reflect fallout from the sexual revolution, with a pervasive subtext of disordered sexuality. I think it was the Catholic writer Christopher Derrick, in Sex and Sacredness, who wrote that when sex is no longer viewed as sacred, when Venus is no longer revered as divine, she becomes demonic. The shadow of that demon haunts the darkened hallways of Alien’s spaceship Nostromo.

Prometheus is overtly preoccupied with even larger questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go when we die? What is faith? Does God exist? Prometheus peers back in time to the origins of human life on Earth and touches on the sometimes ambivalent trajectory in the human psyche toward, or perhaps away from, whoever or whatever has made us.

The scope of the production and the story are so much vaster than Alien that it’s unsurprising that Scott has hedged about calling Prometheus a “prequel,” preferring instead to say that it is set in the same universe and “shares strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak.” It’s a fateful choice of words, since strands of alien DNA are what sets the whole drama — the whole story of human life on Earth — in motion.

The film opens with an Adonis-like extraterrestrial in a pristine landscape — Earth in the distant past — serenely drinking a black liquid that immediately exerts a catastrophic impact on his body from the cellular level up. Within minutes, bits of tissue and DNA washing down a river are all that’s left of him … thereby presumably seeding the Earth with the building blocks that eventually produce the human race.

The idea of exogenesis — the notion that life on Earth, or, in this case, human life, has an extraterrestrial origin — is an old one, but the shattering mechanism displayed here makes a nasty beginning to a film that’s full of nasty moments, with precious few grace notes.

True, Alien itself was a claustrophobic horror film best known for deeply disturbing images. But in the first place, Alien’s baseline mood was workday routine, punctured by a freak encounter with monstrous evil. In Prometheus, there is nothing freakish or accidental about the encounter with alien horror; it is the secret truth of human existence. Prometheus gives us alien horror asworldview.

In Alien, Sigourney Weaver’s heroine Ripley was repulsed by the android Ash’s admiration of the alien as “the perfect organism,” a “survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.” The obvious implication is that such humanistic values as conscience, remorse and morality — “delusions” though some may consider them — are what makes us human; without them, we are monsters ourselves.

Prometheus offers little scope for such humanism. Until a gratifying bit of old-fashioned heroics toward the very end, when the future of humanity itself is on the line, none of the largish cast emerges as particularly likable, sympathetic or even interesting. Behind its lavish production design is very little in the way of heart, spirit or even ideas.

Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green play a pair of romantically involved archaologists, Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway, who discover a recurring pattern of dots in cave paintings that turns out to represent a distant constellation with at least one body, a moon, capable of supporting life — an invitation, as they suppose.

Charlize Theron is in full-on ice queen mode as Meredith Vickers, the enigmatic officer of the corporation that funds the mission to the alien moon. Almost as chilly is Michael Fassbender as an android named David, here because there’s got to be an android in these movies.

Inexplicably, Guy Pearce appears briefly in unconvincing old-man makeup as Peter Weyland, the CEO of the corporation, raising the question why they didn’t just cast an old man. (If Pearce doesn’t appear without makeup in the sequel, I may ask for my money back.) Only Idris Elba as the jaunty ship captain seems like an actual human being, even when he’s crudely hitting on Vickers.

The nominal theme of faith is treated with daunting glibness. “It’s what I choose to believe,” Elizabeth’s father tells her in a flashback when she’s 8 years old, explaining his confidence that her departed mother is in a better place. As an adult, Elizabeth repeats her father’s line, referring not to her ostensible Christian faith, but to her confidence that the aliens they call “Engineers,” who created human beings, await them at the system in the star chart.

For the skeptics, Elizabeth’s “belief” is equally absurd, whatever the facts turn out to be. “You want to just throw away 300 years of Darwinism?” a biologist asks incredulously in response to her theory that human life was intelligently designed (in the process incidentally overshooting the publication of The Origin of Species by two-thirds of a century, given the setting in 2093). But when mankind’s link to the Engineers is confirmed, her unbelieving boyfriend comments that she might as well take off the cross she wears around her neck, since, obviously, there’s nothing special about creating life.

Neither of these comments makes the slightest sense. Exogenesis wouldn’t negate Darwinism; and the Engineers didn’t create life from non-life; they only seeded Earth with their own DNA. At least Elizabeth counters Charlie’s comment about creating life by asking who created the Engineers — to which Charlie responds with dogmatic agnosticism, and there the matter ends.

Certainly there is a quasi-religious dimension to the quest for the Engineers, our makers. In an unsuprising and pointless twist — I guess it’s a spoiler, but I can’t see that it matters — it’s revealed that the elderly Weyland, whom the crew members were told had died on Earth decades earlier, while the ship was in transit, has in fact traveled with them to the alien moon (if the charade is explained, I missed it) to seek out the Engineers, in whom he takes the same interest that many a dying person takes in prayer.

Another spoilerific but shrug-worthy twist: Meredith Vickers is revealed to be Weyland’s daughter as well as his heir — and it seems her father’s goal of cheating death is not on her list of preferred outcomes. On the contrary, she’s all for the previous generation going the way of all flesh to make way for the new, as is the natural order of things. You could say she’s the perfect organism, a survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.

At some point, of course, the movie starts with the gooey and bloody and running and screaming, and existential questions generally fall by the wayside. The alien morphology takes on a bewildering variety of new shapes and forms — it’s impossible to piece together any kind of life cycle; it seems capable of whatever would be grossest and most revolting at any particular moment.

Revolting to the audience, at least; crew members at times are absurdly immune to the horror, notably when a supposedly smart biologist tries to make friends with an obviously menacing alien protuberance displaying cobra-like warning signs. Another revelation takes the original film’s problem of sudden acquisition of biomass to an even more ludicrous conclusion. At least the alien in Alien was wandering a ship where theoretically it might have encountered food stocks; here’s a beastie that grows to hydra-like proportions on thin air, apparently.

In one set piece Scott goes all-out to surpass the shock value of the infamous commissary sequence in the original Alien — and while he succeeds, the new scene flattens the sexual subtext of the original by literalizing it (sorry, yet another spoiler): not only literal sex and pregnancy, but literal abortion. This horrific sequence overwhelms an intriguing earlier exchange in which a discussion about “creating life” segues into a discussion about the trauma of infertility, threatening to reverse Alien’s reproductive fears — until we find ourselves back in Alien-esque gestational nightmare land.

To an extent, the film ends with the pieces in place as we find them at the beginning of Alien — and yet not. The alien ship is apparently where the crew of the Nostromo find it — but the giant alien pilot, the Space Jockey, inexplicably doesn’t wind up where he’s meant to be, perhaps because we needed another action scene. (Of course one could always say — and I’ve since learned that Scott has said — that this isn’t the same ship, planet or Space Jockey that we find in Alien — which just increases the number of theoretically random convergences between the two films. For another example … watch David.) The denouément has suggested that there’s more to come, and Scott has hinted that he’ll need at least two more films to bring it all full circle. Oh joy.

Perhaps that’s why the film is so cagey about its aspirations — why, after over two hours, it feels like little if anything is resolved. Perhaps Scott is saving all the answers for the sequels. It’s worth noting that the film does end with an oblique affirmation of historic Christian faith, but it’s a character’s answer, not the movie’s.

I don’t mind that Prometheus raises big questions without ultimately answering them. Unanswered questions are abundant in life, and there’s no reason you can’t have them in art. I do mind that Prometheus raises big questions and has virtually nothing interesting, insightful or thoughtful to say about them. If the questions aren’t interesting in this film, why should anyone care whether they’re answered in another one?

Comments

>“Of course one could always say — and I’ve since learned that Scott has said — that this isn’t the same ship, planet or Space Jockey that we find in Alien”< One need not have waited to learn about that point from Mr. Scott. The observant viewer would have noted that the destination moon was designated “LV-223” in Dr. Holloway’s holographic briefing to the Prometheus expedition crew. The moon that the crew of the Nostromo visited in Alien, and revealed as later terraformed by the Weyland-Yutani Corp. and returned to by the USCM’s USS Sulaco in Aliens, is designated “LV-426”. Of course we should have a sequel or two. We’ve yet to see how the merger of the Weyland and Yutani companies should come about. Prometheus showed that Weyland’s specialty goes along the lines of planetary terraformation, while AvP: Requiem suggested that Yutani’s focus would be in communications and weapons (having recovered two pieces of Predator technology). This is to set-up the background behind W-Y Corp.‘s particular interest in exploiting the Alien “Xenomorphs” as bio-weapons as mentioned in Aliens and demonstrated in Alien: Resurrection.

Posted by Andy on Thursday, Jun 21, 2012 10:15 PM (EDT):

Steven said: “The fact that what she does would be licit, whereas real abortions are something entirely different, is precisely what makes the scene work as a pro-choice (i.e., false) metaphor.”

I think I get what you’re saying now. You believe the scene “says” to the viewer: “We are showing you a woman having a morally justified ‘abortion.’ You should therefore believe that real-world abortions are likewise morally justified.”

You may be right, but as a viewer who would like to enjoy his money’s worth out of the theatre ticket (smile), I simply choose to be charitable in my interpretation of a scene. . . . Now, if you want to see a Hollywood flick with a truly pro-LIFE scene, check out ‘The Island’ (if you haven’t already). If you have, then you likely know the scene I’m talking about. Quite an underrated film, IMO.

Posted by Sam Entile on Thursday, Jun 21, 2012 10:25 AM (EDT):

You would think they could have programmed the “surgery machine” to operate on both genders. It’s not even as good as a regular surgeon. I mean really - put the machine through an extra semester of med school! :) I also agree with the other poster who said it would have given her a hysterectomy because said parts are “alien” to male bodies.

I am saying, though, that the scene has an overall pro-choice vibe, in that it offers an imaginative picture of the dire stakes of a woman being obstructed in exercising her freedom to make appropriate decisions about her own body and reproductive health by male-centered society—first by a male (robot), and then by a male-oriented (i.e., patriarchal) healthcare machine. The fact that what she does would be licit, whereas real abortions are something entirely different, is precisely what makes the scene work as a pro-choice (i.e., false) metaphor.

Posted by Andy on Thursday, Jun 21, 2012 7:06 AM (EDT):

Steven: I feel like a fool. I misread your key phrase as “morally _IL_licit” rather than “licit.” Still, I got the overall impression that you thought Ridley Scott was promoting pro-choice. Ah well. . . . No, hardly the world’s greatest SF film, but as I say, will appear stronger if it’s just one instalment in a larger story.

Posted by Chris on Tuesday, Jun 19, 2012 2:17 PM (EDT):

My wife has had 2 C-sections. They both required weeks of recovery and walking was totally out of the question for at least 24 hours. Also, if this was calibrated for a man (even though wasn’t this Vickers personal med-pod???), and it was removing a foreign object I would have thought it would also just tear out the uterus, ovaries and everything else female related. They shouldn’t be there since it is a male centric view, it should all be removed. I was impressed that there was no blood at all during the surgery too. The fact that the removal tool looked like a claw from a “grab a stuffed animal” game just made me laugh.

Other spoiler questions:
Why doesn’t the team train together?
The trip only took 2 years, why was hyper sleep necessary? That seems like a good time to do some training.
Why don’t they have any sort of plan once they hit the ground?
Why don’t they survey the planet or at least the landing sight?
Why doesn’t the captain ever have real control of the ship?
Why does a storm the size of a Category 5 Hurricane go completely unnoticed on a scientific vessel until it hits?
When is taking masks off a good idea?
How do the cowards get lost, they only took 1 or 2 turns to even get to the door?
Why do the cowards decide to pet a cross between a facehugger and a king cobra?
Is the first action a archeologist does on a new find to shove 20kV into it and blow it up?
The captain doesn’t even question Shaw, just blows himself up? It was a crazy leap of logic to even assume that these Engineers had built up a bioweapon that went bad. The only reason we assume that is because Scott spoon feeds us the answer.
Why does the ship start with a flute? Really?
100% DNA match, but totally different species.
Mutant aborted baby grows to monstrous size after being frozen and having no food.
3 feet of rock stops a billion ton space craft.
Running sideways is impossible.
New civilization found within first 6 hours on the moon, nothing immediately found alive, Holloway gets drunk and cries like a baby.
People on the team are missing below in a potentially hostile environment, lets go shag.
Weyland in general. He can survive in hypersleep, but going to visit another planet to meet mythical Engineers with your dying breath is a good idea?
Vickers pointless character. Her best interest was to stay at home since she knew this crew was full of people that were incapable of any sort of logical thought.
The geologist never even touches a rock, he throws robot probes into the air. What’s his purpose in the film?
Why didn’t they just throw probes in the hole in the first place?
What’s the point of the holograms?

Andy: Everything you say in your first paragraph I either state explicitly or take for granted. Nothing you write contradicts anything I wrote. You say “She had good reason to want this ‘abortion’; it simply doesn’t equate to real-world abortions with which we’re familiar.” I said precisely the same thing: “In terms of real world morality, what she does (granted the sci-fi premise) would be morally licit.” What do you think I’m taking out of context? Why do you think you’re critiquing me when we seem to agree completely on this point?

Also, what did I say that implied that the surgery pod scene was dumbly written? Now that you you mention it, it does seem dumb to me that the machine is, as one of the film’s critics put it, programmed for “only one of the two sexes popular among humans”; granted that the machine was put on board for the benefit of the “mystery” male passenger, there is no plausible reason that such a sophisticated piece of equipment would be manufactured in the first place without receiving an entire complement of relevant medical data—except to make a point about women’s needs being sidelined and women being denied freedom to make decisions concerning their own bodies.

Regarding the abdominal muscles: This was not a standard Caesarian. The laser beam sliced her entire abdominal wall from side to side. The incision is stapled closed, though this wouldn’t help the severed muscles; presumably the machine stitched them together or something when we weren’t looking. Her torso isn’t even wrapped afterward that I remember. Without abdominal muscles, you can’t so much as sit up. She might be able to walk; for all I know she might even be able to slide down that rope—but anything requiring whole body effort, e.g., putting up any kind of struggle of any kind, would be out of the question.

Posted by Andy on Tuesday, Jun 19, 2012 7:13 AM (EDT):

[SPOILER WARNING]

Steven D. Greydanus wrote of this film’s “morally licit” abortion. This was hardly a perfect film (though since the ending calls for a sequel, as part of a larger story this could be considered a strong instalment). Steven, you’re taking that scene out of context. The context indicates that she knew her pregnancy wasn’t an ordinary human baby but was genetically suspect. She had good reason to want this “abortion”; it simply doesn’t equate to real-world abortions with which we’re familiar.

Secondly, as to the surgery machine, that was one of the more clever scenes in the film. The steps she took to reprogram it so that it would operate on her, despite being originally programmed for a man, were quite plausible. She tricked the computer into assuming she was a male patient with a foreign abdominal object. You make it sound like it was just a dumbly written scene, when it was exactly the opposite. Not only were her actions clever; in addition, the revelation that the machine was built for a man is a tip-off to the audience that something’s up which hadn’t been revealed earlier.

Even your complaint about her subsequent actions, lacking abdominal muscles, is unjustified. (a) She was stoked on adrenalin due to the circumstance; indeed, I believe one or more of the multiple shots she gave herself was adrenalin. (b) These action scenes showed her in dire pain, which lent realism to what she was doing. And it’s not as if she couldn’t use her leg or arm muscles. It’s actually similar to a battle in which a wounded soldier is capable of amazing effort due to adrenalin.

As I indicated, if Scott makes a sequel, then this will have been an excellent lead-in. As a stand-alone story, though, it’s inadequate (though I was entertained; not at all bored). It also generates spiritual discussion—as well as affirming, at the end, the main character’s stunted Christian faith.

Cheers,
Andy

Posted by Sir Robert on Monday, Jun 18, 2012 7:13 PM (EDT):

This movie gives credence (in a somewhat horrible fashion) that human life is a mystery…and to account for that mystery, sci fi writers imagined something this fantastic to account for human beings. Talk about a backhanded compliment. (P.s. I have not seen the film, nor will I probably ever see it.)

Posted by Chris on Monday, Jun 18, 2012 2:19 PM (EDT):

Your review is too kind. I would have rather paid money to see Piranha 3D than Prometheus. This has got to be one of the worst Sci-fi movies I have ever watched. The characters were terrible and their flaws are too numerous to list. The science was awful. The plot holes could fit one of the Engineer’s ships through them.

Anonymous: The blog post you link to has a number of good insights. Any attempt, though, to suggest some kind of ambivalence about abortion on the basis the fact that “her unwanted offspring turning out to be her salvation” seems to me entirely unconvincing. What we have there is a simple case of the “Bigger Fish” trope (“There’s always a bigger fish” — Qui-Gon Jinn), a familiar move in which a predator is neutralized when a more powerful predator attacks it. The hydra-like monster that the heroine’s “miracle baby” has grown into would have taken her out just as assiduously (and with far greater ease), but she survives by turning one predator against another. This doesn’t remotely suggest anything positive or pro-life about monster babies.

Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, Jun 17, 2012 8:59 PM (EDT):

Curious what you think of this http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html interpretation of Prometheus, which hints at the abortion scene actually being pro-life, in that the alien she doesn’t want but notably *doesn’t kill* eventually saves her life.

A male character who has been infected with alien ooze impregnates a female character — one who has been told she can never have children. A short time later, she’s told (by the robot David) that she’s as much as three months pregnant — and that the fetus is not of the usual variety. Panicking, she demands to have it taken out … and David won’t help her. She then turns to a sort of robotic surgical pod — and is told that it’s only programmed for men. Nevertheless, in the movie’s gruesome chestburster scene equivalent, she manages to get it to perform a C-section on her, and has a writhing, starfish-like creature removed from her uterus. (On a side note, the subsequent action scenes we see her engaged in are ridiculous. Her abdominal muscles have been severed. She has no core strength.)

In terms of real world morality, what she does (granted the sci-fi premise) would be morally licit. Thematically, though, we have a parable about the devastating consequences of a woman denied the right to make choices about her own body by a male figure and a male-oriented healthcare system. The gruesomeness of the scene and the overt abortion moralism is what warranted the mention.

AWESOME. Thanks, SGD! I walked away from this movie tonight scratching my head and thinking, “I know I wanted this to be more. And I know I was really let down by it. But what exactly about it let me down?”

Needless to say, your gift of words and insight hit it all right on the head. I’m excited to pass this article on to the other friends who joined me for the film.

Keep up the great work and God bless!

Posted by Pierce Oka on Friday, Jun 15, 2012 3:33 PM (EDT):

I was wondering if you could clarify something for me. By ‘alien abortion’, do you mean the characters kill an innocent alien life (like in District 9), or are they surgically removing a chestburster type thing (like what they needed to to in Aliens 3)? Did you list it under content advisory because it presents an evil act as good, or because it’s just really gross to watch?

Posted by Helen on Wednesday, Jun 13, 2012 12:21 AM (EDT):

Thank you for an excellent review—your insightful article brought into focus all the things I didn’t like about the movie but hadn’t quite been able to articulate. Unlikeable characters, needless plot twists, heavy-handed philosophizing that goes nowhere, and stuff that just plain didn’t make sense. And yet I know I will still see any sequels, hoping for better!

Sam Entile: Thanks for your comments. You make some good points regarding plot parallels, and in fact your list could be further multiplied. In a way it’s almost as much a remake as it is a prequel/origin story!

SPOILERS AHOY - additional plot parallels

* humans respond to signal from aliens (star chart/beacon);
* sinister corporate interests deliberately put employees/contractors in harm’s way;
* malevolent robot deliberately exposes humans to alien infection for the sake of corporate interests (before losing its head, as you note);
* crew members deliberately destroy their own ship in order to stop alien menace;
* flamethrowers used as weapons.

Note that most of these are triple parallels aligning with both Alien and Aliens as well as Prometheus, with some slight adjustments. (In Aliens it’s a malevolent human, not a robot, who deliberately exposes humans to alien infection for the sake of corporate interests—and while the robot in Aliens is ripped in half, for once he’s the good guy.)

Posted by Sam Entile on Monday, Jun 11, 2012 10:54 AM (EDT):

Steven - nice review. I said the same thing about the weakness of the whole idea of “I choose to believe this.” It’s a far cry from Bl. John Henry Newman’s comment: “For directly you have a conviction that you ought to believe, reason has done its part, and what is wanted for faith is, not proof, but will.”

Though I generally did not like this movie, agree with you that the characters were bland and one-dimensional, I was at least pleased that they threw out the obvious question “Who created the engineers?” even if they didn’t answer it. This was written by Damon Lindelof, one of the writers of Lost - a show I found to fly by the seat of its pants and leaving everything to mystery because the writers didn’t know how to tie it together. But, I said to myself, at least they hung the question out there, because the question alone seems to destroy the notion that there’s no God.

Back in January, I read this quote from Ridley Scott:
“And I think the church has conceded as well that **it would not be against the word of God if we conceded that there are other lifeforms in this galaxy.*** So, if you take that out, then the door is open. To me, it’s entirely logical. It’s entirely ridiculous to believe that we are the only ones here. That’s why my first thought is that for us to be sitting here right now is actually mathematically impossible without a lot of assistance. Who assisted? Who made the right decisions? Who was pushing and pulling to adjust us? That’s a fair question.”

Presuming Scott had this in mind when making the film, he doesn’t think the film’s message is to say there’s no God, but rather that God worked through the “assistance” of these Engineers. While the movie suggests that the Christian understanding of Adam and Eve is in question, it seems Scott is not going against the ultimate idea of a “Creator.”

SPOILERS BELOW
At any rate, I already saw the movie with an alien coming out of someone and a brunette female Rambo-style lead character who sweats and runs around ship corridors in white underwear who ends up on an escape pod with an alien inside it. Oh, and there’s a droid who loses his head.

If you say you’re not emotionally invested in the film, JP, I’m happy to take you at your word. (It was only a guess, as I said.) If you aren’t willing to take me at my word and you don’t even know why, well, I’m sure I don’t know why either. I’ll leave that to your conscience. God bless.

Posted by JP on Sunday, Jun 10, 2012 9:43 PM (EDT):

You know, the more I hear you saying “I’m fine with unanswered questions,” the less I believe it. Not sure why.

Trying to make me look emotionally compromised? Rather disingenuous. I just saw the movie last night, so your guess is wrong. I will take your criticism of the movie seriously when it is actually calm and rational. Insisting over and over again that you have to be right and I’m just a traumatized fanboy doesn’t make it so. Since you’re not interested in cooling your engines, I’m ducking out.

JP: Vitriol? Venom? Seriously? If that’s what you see in my reply above, you’re reading with jaundiced eyes, friend. My guess is this film means a lot to you, and you’re taking calm, rational criticism of it way too personally. Cheers.

P.S. Since you’re STILL saying “so what if the film doesn’t answer most of the questions it raises?” — which I have repeatedly made it clear is something I’M FINE WITH — I can only assume you aren’t really reading me.

Posted by JP on Sunday, Jun 10, 2012 3:33 PM (EDT):

Clearly you do have an axe to grind against the movie, judging by the length, vitriol, and aggression of your response. That much is clearer than water, and you SERIOUSLY crossed a line. This closes off the possibility of anyone else seeing anything legitimate, valuable, or deep in the aspects you criticize.

As far as the characters knew, they were encountering the first alien life forms man had seen, and they assumed carnage wouldn’t happen like it did in the movies. Thus their naivete is mistaken for boneheadedness. Obviously. Why do movie critics in general seem to have rapidly shrinking imaginations nowadays?!

And so what if the film doesn’t answer most of the questions it raises? It does a terrific job of breathing new life into the directed panspermia/ancient astronaut theme while pointing out the issues it wouldn’t solve (Shaw saying, “Who made the engineers?” for example), and opening up the theme to discussion and interpretation. If it had a tenth of the idiocy and shallowness you insist it does, why did Guillermo del Toro have so much respect for the film that he’s thinking about shutting down his labor of love, “At the Mountains of Madness,” due to the similarities? Answer me THAT.

Oh, why do I even bother? I see the venom coursing through every sentence of yours, and it’s like talking to a brick wall. You have officially lost my respect.

Posted by Dan Horn on Sunday, Jun 10, 2012 10:31 AM (EDT):

Hi, Stephen. Love your film reviews, but I think you are being a bit harsh on Prometheus. Alien was one of the best movies ever made and certainly one of the greatest sci fi films of all time. It literally changed the face of sci fi films forever and so much of the film is now considered iconic. How in the heck do you follow that up? Well, I think Ridley Scott figured out a way to make his story even more epic. Sure, the whole Chariots of the God trope is a little tired, but at least it was compelling in this film. I agree that the film raises more questions than it answers, by at least a factor of 10, but isn’t that a hallmark of great speculative fiction? I agree the slime factor was high, but Scott also has to shoot for a popular audience who are quite used to the gore from the dreadful AVP franchises (I even like a couple of those cheesy films a little).
I thought the Engineers were compelling and quite cool and ultimately, horrifying. When David told Shaw the Engineer was coming for her, I was actually frightened. It’s a rare movie that does that to this jaded soul.
Scott has advised that he’s got a three film story arc in mind so I’m praying he clears up a few mysteries. He’s launching a trilogy and as such, he’s got to throw in crowd pleasers for the groundlings to make the first film profitable so his other two get made. I’m willing to give him a chance.

P.S. If you want to read a devastating critique of the movie’s boneheaded scientific and narrative blunders, here you go. (Caution: Some objectionable content, including a little religion-bashing, but the main points are on the money.)

“Not profound enough”? Barely profound at all. The review you link to does little, in my judgment, to undermine my case against the film or to answer my objections. On the contrary, my review undermines Mr. Putnam’s points. Mr. Putnam states that Prometheus is

not afraid to ask the tough questions. Where do we come from? Do we have a Creator? What happens after we die? “Prometheus” isn’t presumptuous enough to have all the answers…

My review states:

I don’t mind that Prometheus raises big questions without ultimately answering them … I do mind that Prometheus raises big questions and has virtually nothing interesting, insightful or thoughtful to say about them. If the questions aren’t interesting in this film, why should anyone care whether they’re answered in another one?

In general, I would say that Mr. Putnam is describing the movie Mr. Scott was trying to make, rather than the movie he actually made. I have no axe to grind here: I would very much like to have seen the movie Mr. Putnam describes. But it wasn’t playing at the theater the evening I went.

If you’d like a third opinion, consider this review from an old friend of mine, Lawrence Toppman of the Charlotte Observer:

As storytelling, its simplistic characters and ludicrous situations would embarrass a ninth-grader shooting a short film on a digital phone. Not one of its alleged revelations has the power to surprise.

Characters act like morons, approaching fatal encounters with the trusting smiles of simpletons. Nobody thinks twice about holding a hissing snake up to his face or opening the ship’s door to a crew member who now crawls like a spider, his arms and legs bent backward under him.

If the film’s philosophy had some weight, maybe one could forgive the narrative lapses, the slack characterization, the superhuman feats performed by ordinary people with crippling injuries.

But Scott and his writers dither about God and religion and can’t make up their own minds. Are these aliens our makers or not – and, as someone asks, wouldn’t they have makers, too? Heaven is whatever you believe it is, we’re told; perhaps that explains why a character, planning to kill another, removes a crucifix from her neck, as if to leave her defenseless before evil.

It’s important for filmmakers to wrestle with big topics and interesting to see them do so in a genre that traditionally hasn’t cared much about deep philosophy. But if you name your movie after the titan in Greek mythology who stole fire from the Gods and shared it with mankind, you’d better cast a lot of light. “Prometheus” leaves us in the dark.

I have yet to read a positive review of the film that answers these objections. Nuff said.

Why is the exogenesis being portrayed as a big revelation or ground breaking theme? I’ve seen it in countless sci-fi stories, television shows, and movies- Star Trek, Star Gate, Erich von Daniken, etc.

Plus, if it’s slasher gore and cheap gratuitous special effects that drive the movie over the story (or lack thereof) I’ll save my money and won’t even try to get it when it comes to Netflix.

Posted by Andy Derksen on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 9:00 PM (EDT):

Very interesting discussion of the metaphysical subject—thanks for that much, at least. However, way too spoilerish. I had to stop reading about halfway through, and will save it for later, when I’ve actually seen the movie. . . . A sidebar item: It’s ironic that Ridley Scott has made a habit of presenting Christianity (when he portrays it at all) with a negative vibe—yet is reportedly mulling doing his own movie about Moses.

Posted by Tim on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 6:24 PM (EDT):

@Jeffrey Overstreet: I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson’s earlier films, especially “Bottle Rocket.” But the “quirky” genre of movies has worn on me. Anderson’s past couple of films have been disappointing. I couldn’t even sit through “The Darjeeling Limited.”

I haven’t heard of “Safety Not Guaranteed”, but I’ll have to look into it. As for “Brave”... while I love Pixar, I’ve already seen “How to Train Your Dragon”, and I don’t think a female lead would make me enjoy it anymore. Hopefully “Cars 2” was just a road bump for Pixar, but I’m starting to get the feeling they may have run out of gas (that’s going a bit far, but I had to stick with the metaphor).

Finally, I apologize for being so pessimistic.

Posted by Jeffrey Overstreet on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 5:56 PM (EDT):

David,
I’m going to see Moonrise Kingdom this weekend. The reviewers I trust have been enthusiastic so far. Anthony Lane’s review was very encouraging, and Michael Sicinski - the toughest, most cerebral critic I know - rated it very highly. It seems to be satisfying Wes Anderson fans and winning over some of his critics. So I’m optimistic.

As for The Dark Knight Rises, I’m cautiously hopeful, but I didn’t like Inception, and the overbearing tone of Christopher Nolan’s films is beginning to wear on me. I’m also not a fan of Anne Hathaway. So… we’ll see. Frankly, I have reservations about any superhero movie becoming a trilogy. They tend to stand on such simple, plausibility-challenging premises that they tend to collapse when their stories become too large. I wish the Spider-man series had stopped at Spider-man 2.

Posted by David B. on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 5:34 PM (EDT):

@SDG,

Thanks for this thorough review. Unfortunately, R. Scott just keeps striking out of late. And now he intends to make a sequel to Blade Runner(!).

@Jeffrey Overstreet:

I know it’s off-topic, but what is your own opinion of Moonrise Kingdom? I was looking forward to it, but lost some of my enthusiasm for it of late (I saw an off-putting recommendation online).

P.S. While not staking my hopes on blockbusters, I am very hopeful for The Dark Knight Rises, as it is the end of a trilogy I have so far liked very much. It’s about time for a superhero series to beat the (superhero) trilogy curse.

Posted by The Pachyderminator on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 4:04 PM (EDT):

I would be first in line for Moonrise Kingdom...if it was playing anywhere in my state. Sigh.

What Jeffrey Overstreet said. Very much hoping to catch Moonrise Kingdom this weekend.

Posted by Jeffrey Overstreet on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 3:46 PM (EDT):

Tim,

You wrote:
“Hopefully the other Summer blockbusters will get better reviews, but I’m not holding my breath on “The Amazing Spiderman”... even “The Dark Knight Rises” has me worried.”

Why set your hopes on the typical blockbusters? “Moonrise Kingdom” is playing, and it’s getting wonderful reviews. “Safety Not Guaranteed” is earning some raves as well. I just saw “First Position” and had a grand time.

And don’t forget: Pixar’s “Brave” is just around the corner. I’ll be surprised if it disappoints.

Posted by Tim on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 1:37 PM (EDT):

The reviews I’ve read tend to be less than enthusiastic about this movie. The trailers to Prometheus sold me on it initially with its great visuals and “Inception-like” music, but I don’t think I’m going to see this. If the main selling point of a movie is a self-imposed c-section (abortion?), it’s not worth it.

I was never really impressed with “Alien” and “Aliens” was kind of boring until the last third of the film, so I’m sure I won’t be missing much.

Hopefully the other Summer blockbusters will get better reviews, but I’m not holding my breath on “The Amazing Spiderman”... even “The Dark Knight Rises” has me worried.

Pachyderminator: Yes, I’m aware of that interesting tension between Lewis and Derrick. Actually, though, Lewis himself elsewhere uses language more convergent to Derrick’s:

Emerson has said, ‘When half-gods go, the gods arrive.’ That is a very doubtful maxim. Better say, ‘When God arrives (and only then) the half-gods can remain.’ Left to themselves they either vanish or become demons. Only in His name can they with beauty and security ‘wield their little tridents.’ (The Four Loves)

That is very much the sense in which Derrick (a student of Lewis) is writing in Sex and Sacredness: A Catholic Homage to Venus, a book I warmly recommend.

Posted by The Pachyderminator on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 1:23 PM (EDT):

I think it was the Catholic writer Christopher Derrick, in Sex and Sacredness, who wrote that when sex is no longer viewed as sacred, when Venus is no longer revered as divine, she becomes demonic.

Interesting. C.S. Lewis said just the opposite: that only when sex is no longer a god does it cease to be a demon. The difference, I suppose, is in exactly what being treated as divine means. Derrick’s language doesn’t seem well-chosen to me (assuming your paraphrase of him is accurate), since Catholic reverence for sex depends on giving it a subordinate position in the hierarchy of goods, not on worshiping it.

Posted by Daniel Bernal on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 1:20 PM (EDT):

I think the most important thing to mention is to be prepared if you’re going to watch this movie. The gore scenes are really too extreme… If I hadn’t said my Rosary earlier, I might have been walking out of the movie with some degree of PTSD.

God bless

Posted by Edward C. on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 12:27 PM (EDT):

Thanks for the review, SDG. As a fan of the Alien franchise I had been looking forward to this film, but based on both your review and the one from Catholic News Service, it is being scratched off my list.

Mike: I’m not clear that Scott even acknowledges James Cameron’s Alien, let alone the other sequels and certainly not the AvP spin-offs. Prometheus is sort of Scott’s attempt to reclaim his original Alien from the subsequent franchising of the property.

Posted by Mike in KC, MO on Friday, Jun 8, 2012 11:53 AM (EDT):

How could Weyland still be alive? He died (quite badly) in AvP.

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